1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a microfilm reader/printer capable of projecting information recorded in a microfilm onto a screen or copying the information projected on the screen onto paper, in particular, an image formation apparatus for forming information on film-like recording medium, capable of copying only information of a designated area of the information projected on the screen.
2. Description of the Related Art
A microfilm reader/printer is known as an apparatus for copying information recorded in a microfilm on paper. The microfilm reader/printer projects information recorded in a microfilm onto a screen in an enlarged scale and copies the information projected on the screen onto paper by an image formation apparatus.
The microfilm reader/printer of this type, however, simply copies the information projected on the screen onto the paper by the image formation apparatus. Therefore, if unnecessary information is included in the information projected on the screen, this unnecessary information is also copied.
The image formation apparatus in the microfilm reader/printer has a first image forming mode for forming a positive print from a negative image and a second image forming mode for forming a positive print from a positive image. In the first image recording mode, reversing development is performed. In this reversing development, areas before a leading edge and after a trailing edge of an effective image are unnecessarily developed. For this reason, in the first image forming mode, an unnecessary portion is formed in the formed image.
Therefore, a demand has arisen for an apparatus capable of designating a necessary area of information projected on a screen and supplying information only of a portion of a microfilm corresponding to the designated area, thereby forming the information of only the necessary portion.
Various pieces of operation information set in the first and second image recording modes are stored in, e.g., a RAM (Random Access Memory). The contents of the RAM are, however, reset when a mode is switched or a power source is switched off. Therefore, when the preceding mode is switched or the power source is switched on, the predetermined operation information must be reset.
Therefore, even when a substantially fixed designated area is used in order to, e.g., erase the unnecessary areas before the leading edge and after the trailing edge of the effective image, the area must be designated whenever the image recording mode is switched from, e.g., the second mode to the first one or the power source is switched on, resulting in very troublesome operation.
The microfilm reader/printer is connected to an additional apparatus called, e.g., a page searcher.
The page searcher searches for a necessary image from a belt-like continuous microfilm or inputs a command for copying an image projected on a screen onto paper.
Assume that the operation of designating a necessary area from an image projected on a screen can be performed from only a microfilm reader/printer main body. In this case, after the page searcher searches for a necessary image, an operation of designating the necessary area from the image displayed on the screen is performed using an operation panel of the microfilm, reader/printer, and then a copying command is inputted from the operation panel of the microfilm reader/printer or the page searcher. That is, both the page searcher and the operation panel of the microfilm reader/printer must be operated, resulting in poor operability.